Tuesday
by Icognito DeMimsy
Summary: Same AU as Housewarming, but set several years before. Grantaire is in an accident and Combeferre tries to protect Enjolras from his past.


It is four in the morning when she gets the call.

"For god's sake, fey," she moans as she rolled over in bed. "This had better not be you calling to tell me you finally got in Eponine's pants."

Dead silence on the end of the line. Combeferre sits up in bed, the phone pressed to her ear. "Fey? What's wrong?"

Courfeyrac's voice came out compressed and tight, barely recognizable. "Ferre," he said. "There's been an accident. Grantaire... Grantaire's been hit by a car or something, I don't know. I'm driving to the hospital now. I need you to get Enjolras and drive to Westpoint Hospital now."

Combeferre gasps. "What do you mean, he got hit by a car?"

"I don't know!" Courfeyrac sounds panicked. She can hear the tears in his throat. "I got a call from Joly ten minutes ago, I'm not even fucking dressed, just put on a bra and get to the hospital, please, Ferre."

She nods,then remembers she's on the phone. "We'll be there in a half an hour. Be careful."

She is halfway across the yard when she realizes she doesn't have shoes on. She doesn't care. She reaches Enjolras's sprawling mansion in record time and pounds on the servants door. A sleepy-looking hispanic woman opens the door. Combeferre doesn't say much, just choking out the words "Enjolras" and "emergency" and thinks she manages to get out "tell our parents" before she's sprinting up three flights of stairs to bang on his door. He pulls it open. Combeferre notices detachedly that he fell asleep in his clothes. He looks distinctly rumpled.

"Fey called me," she says. "There's been an accident. We need to get to the hospital."

He doesn't need to hear anymore. He grabs his keys off his desk. "Which hospital?" he says, looking at her with concern deep in his blue eyes. Despite the fact that he just woke up, he looks wide awake.

They're in the car before she even really registers any of the night. Her feet are swimming in a pair of Enjolras's converse. Enjolras is gripping the steering wheel with both hands, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

"What exactly did Fey tell you?" he asks, his voice gruff with worry.

"That Grantaire had been hit by a car or something. We didn't talk long."

"Is Joly there tonight?"

"I think so. Fey said that's who called him."

Enjolras nods, still not looking at her, but somehow managing to notice that she's shivering and peeling off his jacket and handing it to Ferre. She puts it on gratefully and notices that it smells like him. A wave of nausea hits her and she manages to tell Enjolras to pull over in time to spare the leather seats of his father's brand-new car.

He's out of the car and right next to her in an instant, rubbing her back and pulling her hair behind her ears as she retches. She doesn't want to look at him. She's too afraid of what she'll see.

They pull up at the hospital at four forty five. She can't run fast enough in his shoes so he picks her up and carries her inside. They look so panicked that the hospital staff tries to send them to the ER, but Enjolras takes control and within moments they're riding the painfully slow elevator to the third floor.

The door opens with a ping. The first thing she sees is Fey, sitting in a chair with a cup of coffee, and then he's up and holding her like a security blanket, and she feels his tears on her shoulder. She strokes his curls and kisses his temple.

Joly comes out then and Fey steps back with a snuffle. Joly pulls Enjolras aside and Fey and Ferre sit down in the chair. He puts his head in her lap and she strokes it as she looks around.

Joly and Enjolras return. "It's not good," Joly says. "He was hit head on by a sporty-type car. He has a broken hip and several cracked ribs. He still hasn't gained consciousness, and honestly, we can't tell how badly he's concussed because of how high his BAC is."

The elevator dings open and Bosseut, Bahorel, Jehan and Feuilly pour out. Bosseut grabs Joly and just holds him for a bit. Enjolras catches Feuilly and Bosseut up. Jehan comes and sits down next to Ferre, leaning his head against her shoulder.

A real doctor comes out and seems slightly shocked to see his waiting room full of half dressed college kids. He confirms what Joly told them, and then asks about insurance.

"It doesn't matter," Enjolras says, and then, when the doctor begins to protest, "I've got a trust fund with more digits in it than your full name has letters. It _doesn't fucking matter._"

The doctor nods and retreats, terrified into submission by the rabid Enjolras. He walks over to Ferre and sits at her feet, leaning up against her knees.

They wait like this for two hours before Ferre's phone goes off.

"Elizabeth Ann Combeferre!" her mother shrieks in her ear. "Where are you? Your bed's empty- Please, god, don't be in jail again. Honey, you just got back for break-"

She can't deal with this right now. Enjolras gestures for her to give him the phone. "Mrs Combeferre?" he says. "Hi. This is Enjolras. Listen, I'm so sorry Ferre didn't leave a note. One of our friends is in the hospital. No, we don't really know when- Okay. Thank you. Actually, could you let my father know too?" He listens for a moment, then hangs up. She takes the phone back gratefully.

Fey is asleep in her lap when the doctor returns and tells them they can go inside if they're quiet. They all process in to see Grantaire lying on a hospital gurney, an IV drip in one arm, his face bruised. They all sit in various places. Ferre sits by the bed and takes his hand. She pushes a lock of dirty hair out of his face and looks up.

Enjolras is standing alone in the corner. He looks like he is going to be sick. Combeferre suddenly remembers the last time Enjolras was in a hospital. Almost ten years ago. He sees her see him and sucks in a wobbly breath. He shakes his head and walks quickly out the door. She didn't realize she could feel worse than she did until now. How could she be so stupid? How could she bring Enjolras here?

They all watch him go.

"What was that about?" Bosseut asks.

"He doesn't like hospitals," she says quietly.

Fey alone understands, and he looks at her with even more concern. She shakes her head slightly. "Jehan?" she says quietly. "Can I get some coffee?"

The boy nods and heads out of the room, returning after a few minutes with a tray full of styrofoam cups. "If it is just his BAC," she asks Joly, "How long will it take him to wake up?"

He shrugs. "I don't know."

They stay for another two hours, then the hospital kicks them out. "Come back at six," the nurse says.

"You'll call us if there's a change?" Bahorel says, the most commanding figure now that Enjolras has left. The nurse nods. She looks like she is on the verge of tears, and Ferre can't blame her. They are a sad looking bunch.

Ferre is so tired she can barely walk, and once again she doesn't have to. She is lifted into the air by Bahorel. Fey takes her hand and they walk to the car. Bahorel lays her across the backseat and she realizes she's still wearing Enjolras's jacket and shoes before she's out like a light, only waking when Fey pulls up her mile long driveway.

"Are you going to talk to E, or do you want me to?" he asks, his brow furrowed. He looks so serious. She feels like crying. This isn't right, she thinks. Her boys are all broken. "I'll talk to him," she says. "I know where he is."

He nods. "I'll come get you at six?"

"Call me as soon as you hear anything."

He nods. She strokes his face gently before climbing out of the car.

She ditches the shoes at her back door but doesn't enter the house. Instead she walks out to the tree house she can just see from her porch. Her feet are bare and the mud is freezing around her toes, but she barely even notices. She's too busy thinking of the last time she walked out here with no shoes on, ten years ago, on the night when Enjolras's mother died and he cried for the last time she can remember. She was ten years old. She was wearing a white dress, she remembered. It was a Sunday, and the priest had said to them all that they must pray for the soul of Enjolras's mother, because she was finally with God. And her mother had stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth and her father had put his arms around both of them, and that night she found out that his father had taken a cane and beaten her Enjolras till he stopped crying, because his mother was dead and no amount of bawling would bring her back. And that night she had walked out to the tree house to find ten-year-old Enjolras sitting in the cold and the dark,and she had put her arms around him and he had cried. And she had watched as the father, who had always been stern and had always been strict, now became a tyrant and forgot how to love, and she had watched as the boy, who had always been a dreamer and had always been an idealist, became a revolutionary and forgot how to cry.

She arrives at the base of the tree and looks up. He's sitting there, just looking up at the gray sky.

"Enjolras?" she says softly.

He doesn't start or look down. She climbs up the ladder and sits down next to him.

"I want to fucking kill him," Enjolras says.

Ferre doesn't answer.

"It's a fucking Tuesday," he says. "How do you get so shitfaced you'd step in front of a car on a Tuesday?"

He is still staring at the sky. "He's going to get himself killed. Maybe not today, but someday. And I'm going to have to wear a fucking suit to his funeral, too. I hate suits. I _fucking hate suits_!"

He grabs a chair from the miniature table in the corner and chucks it out the window. He is on his feet now, pacing back and forth. Ferre sits and watches him.

"_People_," he growls, "are so fucking _fragile_, all the time. One drink. That's all it takes, is _one fucking drink _and somebody's dead. And there are cars, and guns, and fists, and _diseases_, diseases without cures that don't make fucking _sense!_"

He is running his hands through his hair. "It doesn't make sense!" he cries. "We've told him, again and again, and he doesn't listen, and now he's going to die and it's only a fucking _Tu__esday!_"

He stops and looks at her, dead on. "God, Ferre," he whispers, his red lips shaking like leaves. "I'm so terrified."

And all it takes is an instant and he's in her arms and she's holding him and stroking his blonde hair and his entire body is trembling now, and she doesn't know what to do to help him other than to hold him and to stroke his hair and to let him cry like he hasn't since he was ten years old, because she's afraid too, and she doesn't know what will happen, or if they can save their friend. She just hold him, because that is what she can do. She can let her embrace tell him that she loves him, and that she will be here for him.

Eventually his shaking slows and she can feel some of the tension return to his body, but she doesn't let him go. He shifts so that they are looking out the window together, his head on her shoulder. Finally she kisses his forehead lightly.

"Fey is coming to get me at six to go back there," she says. "Do you want to come, or-"

He nods quickly. "I do," he says. His voice has not yet regained its commanding ring. "I just- god, I'm starving."

She nods. They exit the tree house silently and return to Ferre's house. The walk is probably two acres, two acres that they trudge in silence. When they reach the door, Enjolras turns to look at her. He seems to be searching for something to say. Ferre smiles and says it for him.

"I love you," she says, reaching up to touch his cheek. He smiles and nods.

They go into the kitchen and Ferre begins to make grilled cheese. Above the stove is a large picture of her and Enjolras at about thirteen, lying on the beach together. She likes the picture, despite the fact that it is just another way of her parents overcompensating for their daughters lack of interest in the male sex. Just after it was taken Enjolras had realized that the beach was part of a club, a club which didn't allow much ethnic, religious, or really any diversity, and had decided to build in protest an enormous sandcastle depicting two women kissing passionately with Stars of David on their arms. Halfway through he had given up and launched into a speech instead. His father and his new stepmom had thrown him out of the house for a week, and then something happened that neither of the boys would explain to her happened which resulted in Fey's expulsion as well. The two had shown up on her doorstep laden down with sleeping bags and spray paint and the three of them had then broken into the club and graphitied rainbows all over the boathouse. It was actually the first time any of them had been arrested.

She sighs and flips the grilled cheese over. Enjolras is just staring at his hands.

Ever since his mother died when he was ten Ferre has felt responsible for Enjolras in a way that she had never felt about anyone else. She has no siblings, so she can't really compare it to that. All she knows was that he is hers to protect, and that right now, she is failing at protecting him. She can see it in his eyes, that he is thinking about her again. That he is once again hearing his father's voice in his ears telling him that it's all his fault his mother's dead. It doesn't matter that he knows now it's not true. It doesn't matter that Grantaire is the one in the hospital now. Grantaire is one of his. And if he dies, Enjolras will blame himself, because that is how he was raised.

She plates the grilled cheese and slides it across to him. He takes it mechanically. His teeth are just sinking into the sandwich when her phone beeps. She opens the text and looks up at him in shock.

"Grantaire's awake," she says.

"We'll be there in twenty minutes," he says, dropping the sandwich.

The trip is just as blurred as it was the first time. Fortunately Combeferre doesn't vomit again. They run through the doors at the same time as Fey, leading Jehan and Feuilly, pull into the lot. Bahorel, Bosseut, and Joly are already at the front desk. They skip the elevator completely, charging up the stairs. Jehan is being carried by Bahorel. Ferre is being dragged by Courfeyrac. They reach the top in less than two minutes and simply burst into the room. Ferre just registers Grantaire's sleepy brown eyes blinking at her before she throws her self on him, feeling Courfeyrac and Jehan right behind her. The other crowd around, Joly is crying about his ribs and Bahorel is threatening to break more of his bones and Ferre is just holding onto him. She thinks that Enjolras is standing in the corner again when another body throws itself on top of them. Grantaire lets out an anguished "Ouf!" sound. Enjolras pulls back.

"You are going to sober up right now," he thunders. "I swear to god, the minute I get out of here I am smashing every last bottle you own."

Grantaire nods, looking terrified and confused. Enjolras's face splits into a smile. "Jesus Christ, R," he says. "You had us worried."

Ferre tucks her feet up onto the bed and lies back. She looks at Enjolras's smile and feels Grantaire's steady heartbeat beneath her and she smiles for the first time today.


End file.
